


Your Body, Oh (Soothe My Soul)

by marstime



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Anxiety Attacks, Gen, a bit of body horror because. jared. but nothing graphic, jared's weird gym, meditating for your bro, platonic but could be read as romantic i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:27:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24808522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marstime/pseuds/marstime
Summary: Something's disharmonious in Jared's body today. He fixes it.(On a cot in the institute, Jon is panicking).Written as part of a fic/art exchange!
Relationships: Jared Hopworth & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 10
Kudos: 75





	Your Body, Oh (Soothe My Soul)

**Author's Note:**

> Do you ever write something out there but weirdly relaxing? That's what this fic was for me.
> 
> Fic/art exchange prompt: "the weird Tenderness to the relationship between jared n jon"
> 
> Takes place after Jon emerges from the Buried but sometime before the end of Season 4

The human body is perfection in metamorphose.

Each cell burns tirelessly through its lifespan, withering away to be replaced anew. The skin, the hair, the eyelashes all grow, shed, grow, shed. It’s a gradual process, unnoticeable in its slow, gentle ebb and flow. Jared is blessed with the privilege of awareness. He feels the newness each breath ushers in. The form already burned away with the oxygen, rising from the ashes with the upward thrust of carbon dioxide.

No part of Jared Hopworth’s body is the same as it was on any given day. That enlightenment his God grants him is enough to overwhelm in and of itself. But Jared is blessed. Even among the acolytes, he is blessed.

The body may give, but Jared gets to _take_.

His collection of offerings hum under his skin, a chorus of beating hearts. He incorporates the other into himself, again and again. Each time the ritual completes, each time he opens his eyes, he has grown. Like tree roots tangling in the dirt, he grasps eagerly at his transformed present. Born anew. Fragmented and spliced together in glorious incongruity. Somehow, it all works.

The sight might disgust some. He doesn’t understand. In many ways, he is merely expanding upon the patchwork of systems dubbed “person.”

Jared’s body is sacred, as an extension of the God he feeds. He nourishes it, sits with it, listens to it crack and stretch and gurgle. Revels in the scattered muscle memories, the sensations he absorbed with the spare finger here, the leg there. Each giving a physical reaction, learned to the point of reflex from its owner’s experiences. So it’s no surprise that when his breathing starts to shallow and quicken, his pulse struggling to match, he lowers his barbell and observes:

  1. The pulse could be fatigue, were it nestled in his temples, but it creeps lower, tightening in his chest.
  2. Aforementioned chest starts up a dull ache. Overexertion?
  3. A punch of somatic dread, somewhere under the diaphragm.



Hmm. Someone is having a panic attack. 

Jared closes his eyes, dulling the senses one by one. Listening to the song. It flows down his main heart, looping through his playground of a circulatory system, down past the lungs and — wait, no, over — just — there.

Ah.

Jonathan Sims’ diptych of desperation.

Ribs are a particularly fragile bone. Protective, but so vulnerable, prone to bowing under a well-aimed kick. Much like the man willing to offer up his own.

Jared wonders if it was worth it. Wonders what it must be like to sign away the self, to forsake such beautiful gifts.

 _Okay. Focus_.

Jared doesn’t know the exact cause of Jon’s panic attack. He’s just used to playing his body like an instrument, or perhaps coaxing it like a stubborn cat, depending on the day. He may not understand much, but he does know that a good way to get back to the bench is to calm things down upstairs, so to speak. So he throws a towel across his shoulders and drops into a sitting position.

“Jon,” he grates out. His branches cannot hear him, but there’s something to be said about placebo. “Let’s get this sorted out, hm?”

Crossing his legs, he straightens, taking a moment to appreciate the even distribution of weight down his spine. Then, he breathes in deep, measuring out a generous definition of five beats. Jared has spent hours experimenting with airflow, but he keeps things simple, letting it swirl through the stomach before lifting into the lungs.

He holds it there for another five, letting the sounds of the gym soak in. The world is not still - never still, itself a microorganism - but there’s a calm to its asynchronies. Then, he exhales, counting to eight.

The first few times he tries this, the breaths loosen prematurely, sagging before he’s pulled into another. But Jared is patient, and the body eventually sinks into the routine.

“That’s it,” he murmurs. “You’re doing just fine.”

Waves of fear roll through his gut like the ocean against a cliffside. Each time they break, Jared braces for another, trapped in the swell. Breathing clearly isn’t enough here.

He returns once again to the grounding world of the senses. The body is defined, after all, by its relation to the exterior. What good is skin without something to touch? He cards his hand across the cement floor, the coolness lighting up a cluster of sensory receptors. Next, he listens to the stalwart monotony of life, ambling unswervingly around him. A group of teenagers shrieking outside. The whirr of industrial fans. The soft, satisfying click of weights at the end of a set, lowered with care. Finally, he opens his eyes, tracing the gleaming end of the chair he liked to bench from.

“How are we now?” He asks. Wishes, for the first time in years, that his voice was a little smoother.

He feels… better, to be certain. But something is still a little off. Jon must be one hell of a fighter to box with his amygdala for so long.

Alright. Time to get unconventional.

Jared knows he is a lot keener on these connections to his other selves than they might be. But if he could just tap into that awareness, even subconsciously…

Slowly, tentatively, Jared lifts a hand. Lets it hang, balanced between muscle and gravity. Then, he gently clutches another of his hands. He sits there, letting his breathing deepen, his eyes slip back closed.

 _I’m here_ , he thinks. _It doesn’t have to be me. Probably shouldn’t, in all honesty. But here I am anyway._

He lets himself sink into the present, turning the thought like a pebble through fingertips. Eventually, if nestles into his slowing heartbeat.

 _I’m here_.

In. Out.

Burn. Rise.

* * *

When Jonathan Sims comes to on the cot, unaware that he’d drifted off, he feels a little less alone.

**Author's Note:**

> physical anxiety attack exercises used in this fic:
> 
> -deep breathing/belly breathing
> 
> -sensory grounding
> 
> -touch and outside reassurance 
> 
> Ai's gorgeous art given in exchange can be found here:  
> https://twitter.com/Ailov3you/status/1272707780030406673?s=20!
> 
> Title taken from Mother Mother's "Calm Me Down"


End file.
